To Reality and Beyond: Employing XR to Facilitate Tacit Knowledge Flow

Tacit knowledge—experiential, embodied, and context-sensitive—is central in occupations requiring 1st person, spatial-temporal skills, but can be difficult or impossible to transfer, particularly in military domains. This study investigated whether Extended Reality (XR), delivered through low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) head-mounted displays, could facilitate such knowledge flow for U.S. Navy (USN) bridge teams. A within-subjects design compared the Office of Naval Research Technical Solutions’ XR based Virtual Bridge and Nautical Trainer (VIBRaNT) to the Navy’s multi-million-dollar physical mockup system, the Navigation, Seamanship, and Shiphandling Trainer (NSST). Results showed that VIBRaNT XR compared favorably with NSST in perceptions of cognitive workload, system usability, and training preparation. Notably, XR-first training improved perceived mockup performance, suggesting XR has a positive impact on mockup training. These findings support XR as a viable, portable, and cost-effective complement to traditional training systems to build tacit knowledge in teams performing high-risk operations.